Gas turbine engine manufacturers continuously investigate tools and processes for efficiently producing engines. As one example, a fuel manifold for distributing fuel to a combustor of gas turbine engine may include a plurality of tube clamps configured to attach metal tubes to hose fitting inserts or brackets. A bolt fastener is typically used in combination with a bushing to tighten each tube clamp around the respective tube. In particular, the bolt fasteners and the bushings typically are separate parts that are carried to the engine, such that the bushing can be held within an aperture of a bracket and the bolt fastener can be inserted through the bushing and the aperture of the bracket so as to engage female thread of the clamps. For this reason, the bushings may become separated from the bolt fasteners, and in one example, the bushing may be irretrievably dropped into inaccessible sections of the engine thus causing damage to the engine over its service life.
It would therefore be helpful to provide a fastener device that is configured to secure a bushing and a bolt fastener to one another as a single unit in a pre-assembled configuration, thus preventing either part from being separated from the other.